It occurs to me that I haven't really spent much time updating you all on things not related to our precious little bun in the oven! I'm sure you can understand how everything else going on in my world tends to slip my mind when I start thinking about my little guy :-] I'll add a belly shot at some point, once I've taken a new one - it's getting pretty intense, I must say. We're 22 weeks along now, and it feels great to wave goodbye to the half-way mark as it disappears in the rear view mirror! From the moment I saw his face I've wanted nothing more than to snuggle him to within an inch of his life, so I'm already getting very impatient about his arrival! As far as pregnancy symptoms go, my major complaints are heartburn and backaches, but that's about it. Nothing debilitating.
And as always, I'd like to take a moment to sincerely thank all of you who have been praying religiously (pun intended!) for our baby boy and offering up your love and support daily, and encourage you all to keep it up! Our next sonogram is exactly one month away, so we still have an entire month to continue our little prayer crusade! Pass it along to your families, friends, and prayer chains - the more the merrier :-]
So like I said, it's so easy for me to get wrapped up in my little Benjamin Elijah... but I really do intend for this post to be a more broad update. We've actually had quite a bit going on here lately! First of all, we've been house hunting! Our original plan had been to find a townhouse to rent when our apartment lease is up in September - we're currently in a 1BR apartment and will be needing more space come October! - but after looking further into it, it turns out that it will actually be less expensive for us to buy a townhouse than to rent one, believe it or not! For nearly a month now, we have been anxiously awaiting 3rd party approval on a contract that we signed on a short sale townhome. The sellers accepted our offer, but since it's a short sale we have to wait for the bank to accept it too, which could take up to 45 days. It's a 3BR, 2.5 BA, 10-year-old townhome in a lovely, quiet neighborhood a little further away from the city. It has a finished basement and a fenced yard, too, so we'll have plenty of space for our new addition plus a little room to grow! We're VERY excited, but have been trying to keep it all under control until we have an answer. It's not easy. I feel like this is the last piece of our little puzzle and I'm just dying to fit in into place!
We've made some other big decisions lately, too. For one thing, I'm going back to medical school. It won't be this Fall, since I'll obviously be indisposed for much of that particular season, but my school has approved a second year of leave so that I can return in the Fall of 2012. Spending this time working where I work has been truly eye-opening for me, and has made it very clear that this path is where I belong. I won't go into the gory details of how I arrived at this decision (that's enough for another entire post of it's own), but suffice it to say that I'm feeling great about it and it has become abundantly clear to me that God is in this. More to come on that.
In talking with my school about this second year of leave, the decision was made that I would spend this next year off doing lots of review work. It's in their best interest to ensure that I return well-prepared to tackle second-year, with my first-year material fresh, so they can't just let me sit on my intellectual butt for another year. What that means, in practical terms, is that I'll be enrolled in a 6-credit (part-time) special elective designed as an independent study for review purposes. I'll be completing it all from home and checking in periodically to report on my progress. This will allow me (a) to defer my student loans, since I'll be enrolled part-time, and (b) to take out some student loans to help with living expenses. And point (b) is going to allow me to live the dream for approximately 10 sweet months... I'm staying home with Eli :-] If you know me at all, you know that this is something I've been DESPERATE for, so it's a pretty huge deal for us! Of course, taking out the extra student loans has its pros and cons (which were discussed at length), but the savings in child care alone almost completely justifies it, financially speaking. Not to mention being able to defer my student loan payments. And let's be honest... my being able to stay home is an obvious benefit to our whole family!
I spent many tearful conversations with God just begging for a way to stay home with the baby. Though I was convinced that it was a financial impossibility, I kept praying anyway. As you can imagine, I've also spent A LOT of time in prayer over my future, asking God to guide me as I struggle to figure out my career situation. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to me that God was planning something so big that it would answer both prayers in one fell swoop, but it still left me shocked and awed when I realized what had happened. After all of the prayer and the uncertainty, God dropped an answer right into my lap. "Here's your miracle - your way to stay at home with this baby. BUT it comes as a package deal with your return to medical school, so you're going to have to trust me." It hit me like a ton of bricks when I realized the gravity of it. And then I felt a sudden rush of relief when I saw how clearly He was revealing His hand in all of this. It was just what I needed most - guidance from His hand, clear as day, leading me back to the path I was meant to travel. I finally feel peace over my future, perhaps for the first time ever.
There are so many reasons that I needed to take this year (now two years) of leave from school. Had I not left, I wouldn't have landed in this job. I wouldn't have been working in an environment that reminded me of where my career passions lay and just how much I want to be a doctor. I wouldn't have been surrounded by CF researchers and CF doctors and genetic counselors and ALL of the resources I'd need to get me through the discovery of our CF carrier status with our first child. I wouldn't have ever (intentionally, at least) conceived this perfect little miracle, whose presence in our lives God has used to lead me into peace and certainty about my future as a doctor. God is good all the time, and all the time, GOD IS GOOD!
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